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Chicago
fast food workers and advocates for a living wage protested outside a
downtown McDonald’s Thursday morning, demanding that the company stop
mistreating its workers.

Thursday’s protest coincided with
similar demonstrations at McDonald's restaurants in more than 30 countries as part of the National Guestworker Alliance’s global
anti-exploitation campaign against the fast food giant.

Tyree
Johnson, who has worked at McDonald’s in Chicago for 21 years, said he
has been “exploited” and “disrespected” at the hands of the company.

“I
complained to my boss about a raise, and I told her I’ve been evicted,
and she said, ‘So what? I don’t care,’” Johnson said outside the
McDonald’s at 23 S. Clark St. “So I’m here to fight and stand up for $15
a hour and support guestworkers who have been exploited also.”

Some McDonald’s student guestworkers held a teach-in at the chain’s flagship store today in River North to show their solidarity
for organizing Chicago fast-food workers and to expose the threats of
deportation and severe exploitation they say they have faced at the hands of the company.

Standing in support of the guestworkers, members of the Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago,
a union for downtown fast-food and retail workers that is pushing for a
$15 minimum wage, discussed documented and undocumented workers’ rights
to organize.

“We have rights with documents or without,” Lorraine Chavez, outreach coordinator with the Fight for 15
campaign, told the student guestworkers, who originally
worked in McDonald’s restaurants in central Pennsylvania, and their allies
inside the Rock ‘n’ Roll McDonald’s.

Just days after striking warehouse workers staged a large blockade
outside a major Walmart supply warehouse in the suburbs, a group of
like-minded labor advocates marched in front of a downtown Chicago
Walmart store.

The group, lead by Chicago Jobs With Justice, contained some of the same workers who attended Monday’s rally, like Dakari Whitfield.

Whitfield told Progress Illinois
that many employees in the suburban Elmwood warehouse work in harsh
conditions indoors without good ventilation, rarely get paid on time,
and are treated badly when they complain to managers.

“It’s
an unfair labor practices strike. We’re asking for a set schedule,
benefits, and maybe transportation,” Whitfield said. “When we presented
this position, people got fired and suspended.”